


Fanteeney Todd

by lesmisloony



Category: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo, Sweeney Todd - Sondheim/Wheeler
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-17
Updated: 2014-09-18
Packaged: 2018-02-17 19:34:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 12
Words: 16,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2320889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesmisloony/pseuds/lesmisloony
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fantine is alive, and has returned to Paris to seek Cosette. After beginning an odd partnership with a certain Inspector she swears she will avenge the late Madeleine by offing Thénardier and Montparnasse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. An Arrival in the Rue de la Flotte

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter One is awful but the rest is worth it. I wrote this in 2007 so be nice.

It was a dark, chilly morning in Paris when the Gillenormand carriage rolled in from Montreuil-sur-Mer. It stopped in la Rue de la Flotte, where a dark-haired young man stepped out, offering his hand to his companion.

The woman who emerged from the carriage was a startling sight. She had long, gray hair and a leer that lacked front teeth. Her clothes were worn and soiled, but beneath the crinkles of age and worry that lined her face bright, malicious blue eyes could be seen. Her traveling companion bowed to her. "I suppose, Madame la Blonde, that it is here we must go our separate ways," he said politely.

Madame la Blonde nodded, everything about her radiating impatience. "I do thank you for stopping for me, Monsieur Pontmercy," she said.

"No Christian soul would have left you there in the streets of that small town at night!" the young man cried. "But anyway, there's no place like Paris. I feel home again."

"Oh yes," smirked Madame la Blonde.

"Did you say you had, ah, unfinished business here, Madame?"

Madame la Blonde inclined her head.

"How pleasant!"

"You are young," the woman said, "and life has been kind to you thus far. You'll learn soon enough." When Monsieur Pontmercy did not reply, Madame continued. "There was a mayor and a whore… and he was a good man. A righteous mayor and a whore—he'd take her daughter in, he swore—and he was wonderful! And he was virtuous! And she was… not dead. There was an innkeeper who saw the whore was unconscious! The mayor came to get the girl… to take the daughter in!"

"The child, Madame!" cried Pontmercy, "Did the mayor get her from the innkeeper?"

"Oh, that was many years ago," Madame la Blonde replied softly, "I doubt if anyone would know…"

There was a moment of silence as the two attended to their similar reveries. Madame la Blonde kept her bright eyes fastened to the cobbles beneath her feet, and young Monsieur Pontmercy found himself watching a number of painful expressions cross her haggard face.

A stooped, dark figure darted from the shadows. Both Pontmercy and Madame la Blonde stepped back in alarm as the intruder approached them, palms outstretched, and began to beg. "Alms!" he cried. "Alms, for a miserable beggar!"

Monsieur Pontmercy dug into his pocket and dropped a few coins into the old beggar's hand, and the wretched creature turned his attention on Madame la Blonde. "Alms!" he moaned. "Alms! Hey! Don't I know you, lady?"

"Be off with you!" screeched the old woman, "Get away from me!"

Shouting, the old beggar scurried away in a hasty retreat, leaving Pontmercy and the hag alone in the street.

"You shouldn't be afraid of him," Monsieur Pontmercy ventured. "Paris is full of beggars. I've found that giving them a little…" his voice trailed away as he became aware that his companion was not listening.

At length, Monsieur Pontmercy said, "Well, Madame, if ever you need anything, I live with my grandfather at the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire. Where can I find you?"

The woman started at the sound of his voice. She slowly turned her eyes to his open face and answered, still half-wrapped in her memories, "I imagine I shall be here, Monsieur, in the Rue de la Flotte. I shall not soon forget the young man who gave me a ride into Paris from the country."

Marius bowed again and climbed back into the waiting carriage, which lurched forward and clattered to the end of the street and turned away, out of sight.


	2. The Police Station

Madame la Blonde made her way carefully down the Rue de la Flotte. She did not know what it was she sought, but she still remembered a time, long ago, when this street had been her home, and a little room above a police station where she had lived with—

The station was still there, but the windows of her upstairs room from so long ago were boarded up. Madame la Blonde spent a long moment watching the silent building, remembering the round, blue eyes of her darling little girl softly drooping into sleep beneath heavy lashes. This is where it had all happened, so many years past, where she had cradled the child and lain with him, the man she wanted so desperately to forget. Her retrospection was interrupted by someone approaching—Madame la Blonde spied the dirty old beggar from earlier and hurried into the little police station before he could bother her again.

The interior of the station was dull, box-like, and painfully gray. An officer sat over a gray desk, his gray greatcoat buttoned up to his pale chin and a dark gray bicorne hat resting heavily on a pile of colorless paperwork. Almost before Madame la Blonde had closed the door he was on his feet. "A prisoner," he growled, the tones of his voice revealing a kind of hope.

Madame la Blonde backed toward the door, but the policeman lurched after her. "Wait!" he cried. "Don't rush off. I thought that, perhaps, you were—it's been rather quiet here, understand, and I haven't had a prisoner in weeks. Did you come with a complaint, Madame? Anyone I can arrest for you? I don't know what they were thinking, sticking a first-class inspector out here in the Rue de la Flotte, where absolutely nothing happens. I find I am quite desperate for something to do. What do you need, Madame?"

Madame la Blonde was silent for a moment in the face of this monologue from a man who had the air of one who only ever said that which is necessary. She gathered herself. Why had she entered the police station? To avoid the old beggar in the street, of course, but, while she was here… "The room upstairs," Madame began, "is empty?"

The inspector nodded.

"Why don't you rent it out, if things are indeed so dull?"

He inclined his head respectfully, having clearly collected himself and abandoned his momentary verbosity. "I do not know, Madame."

"Do you know who used to live there?"

"I've heard a story," the inspector said levelly, "and it has led me to believe that I did know them. There was a mayor and a whore, and he was immoral. A lying mayor and a whore. I think he loved her, that's for sure. And he was horrible; he was deplorable, and she was… naïve."

"Is that what they say?" asked Madame la Blonde, her voice curiously stilted. "What happened to them?"

"The whore died. And the mayor tried to get the whore's daughter from some innkeeper in Montfermeil with nothing but a note from the mother. The innkeeper, along with a boy called Montparnasse, beat the mayor senseless and kept the child. Thénardier, the innkeeper, has managed to hide himself—and the girl—here in Paris. And," he said, his tone suddenly colder, "no one has heard from the mayor since."

"Thénardier still has my Cosette!" cried Madame la Blonde, her entire body shaking in indignation and horror.

The inspector turned to his haggard old visitor with a knowing look in his eyes. "So it is you then, Fantine. We thought you were dead."

Fantine la Blonde shook her head. "No, I live, Inspector. But without my Cosette—! I've spent these years working in Montreuil-sur-Mer, knowing nothing of my child or my savior—"

"Your savior," the inspector spat. Fantine looked at him in alarm; he seemed to be taking physical effort to calm himself. "Well, what will you do then? Hunt the innkeeper down yourself? I can assure you that the police have been doing as much for several years, and have made almost no progress."

"I—I don't know," Fantine stammered, "but I will find a way. I will find him and I will avenge my poor Monsieur Madeleine—" the Inspector made a choking noise "—let them shake in their boots," Fantine continued, fire rising in her cracked voice, "Thénardier and the boy, for their time has come, and I will have them! If I have to sell the rest of my teeth and my hoary hair, and anything that might be left, I would do it all again just to sink my fingernails into the flesh of his monstrous face!"

There was a brief pause. Fantine was completely wrapped in her fiendish fury, and the Inspector was watching her with an expression of mild amusement. At last, he broke the silence. "And why don't you just rent out your old room upstairs? I gather no one has lived in it since you left."

Completely dropping her ferocity, Fantine smiled at him, displaying the empty space in her front teeth. "A fine idea, to say the least, monsieur, but how do you propose I afford the rent? It will have to be the street corner, m'sieur, for I hardly have enough to feed myself."

The Inspector did not respond for a moment, squinting intently at the gap-toothed smile with which he was presented. "Well," he said at length, "if you can find out a way to use these," and he crossed behind the gray desk, rummaging through a drawer and coming up with a black case in his hands. "We confiscated them from a man who was incarcerated here some time ago, and he never returned."

Fantine approached and took the case from the Inspector's hands, opening the little clasp and letting it fall open to reveal—a set of dental keys. The woman lifted her eyes from the all-too-familiar instruments and glanced at the Inspector, who was allowing a little smile to flicker over his thin lips.


	3. Roses in the Rue Quernie

On the Rue Quernie, in a tiny neighborhood in one of the slummiest of Paris's faubourgs, there was at that time a small tenement with a little garden out front. It was in fact too small to be really named "garden," but just a little too large to be considered a bouquet. And in this little patch of flowers, on most days, a ragged girl sat in silence. She was a tall, graceful creature, but her beautiful features were half hidden beneath tattered clothes and layers of dirt. If washed, her hair would perhaps have been a lovely shade of auburn. The garden was the only place she could find to be alone, for her master never entered there. She had learned since childhood to answer his summonses immediately in order to spare herself a harsh beating.

This day, she had seated herself amongst the roses, her back to the building. When she stretched her legs, her rough, calloused feet could touch the far wall of her little garden. The rosebushes had grown so high that only her face showed above them, and but for her shining azure eyes a passerby might have mistaken her red, wind-chapped face for an over-large bloom. She had worked very hard that day, and it was not long until the gentle breeze rustling in the bushes sang the girl to sleep.

At that time a young man who is known to the reader was also on the Rue Quernie. He had been passing by this little garden when he saw its young caretaker and stopped, not because he had been struck by her potential beauty, but because he had been startled to see someone sitting amongst the flowers like that at all. The girl's eyes opened and fastened on to his, and the young man, who was clearly our Monsieur Marius Pontmercy, thought, for the briefest of moments, that he could see into her warm soul. The girl smiled at him, and he could feel the heat of the sun.

She got to her knees, cautiously, plucked a heavy rose from the nearest bush, and offered it to him. Dazed, Marius took it from her. Their fingers brushed, and he jerked away at the deep sensation the touch of her skin had given him. He clasped the bloom to his heart, still gazing into her deep eyes.

"Cosette!"

The call had come from within the house. The smile dropped off of the girl's face, and she scrambled to her feet and retreated into the dingy tenement.

Marius stood alone in the street, clutching the rose in his shaking hand.

He heard a scuffling sound from a nearby side-street, but he did not hasten away. He was waiting for Something to happen. Something had passed wordlessly between him and that wretched girl, and he refused to let things end in a shroud of anonymity.

The stooped form of an old beggar emerged into the Rue Quernie, and Marius recognized him as the same man he had seen in the Rue de la Flotte.

"Alms! Alms!"

Marius found a coin in his pocket and proffered it, withdrawing his hand just as the old man's fingers neared his. "Can you tell me about the girl who lives here?" he asked, still displaying the coin. "Can you tell me about Cosette?"

"Cosette?" the man repeated, his voice almost shrill. "She works for Thénardier, that's all. Some—some waif or something, with no… with no family." He snatched the coin from Marius's fingers and hurried away, turning once to add, "I'd not tamper there, if I were you, M'sieur. Thénardier is stronger than… than any youth with mischief on his mind."

Marius Pontmercy watched the beggar as he withdrew, but he would not heed his words. This Something between himself and the girl Cosette was different, and he would not let it fade away. He was fingering the rose she had given him, gazing at its pinkish petals, when a pair of bare, red feet appeared in his line of vision. He looked up; She stood before him.

"Cosette?" he breathed, almost afraid She would vanish. "Is that your name?"

She smiled shyly and nodded.

Marius extended a timid hand, taking her rough one in his and nervously pressing it to his lips. Cosette's cheeks flushed a deeper shade of red.

The rose was snatched out of Marius's hand; Cosette jumped away, lowering her gaze to the ground. A well-dressed, threadbare young gentleman had approached them. He coolly inspected the pilfered rose, turning it back and forth between his long, tapered fingers, before tucking it into his buttonhole and turning on the pair with a malicious gleam in his black eyes.

"Does the innkeeper know you're here?" he asked Cosette. She shook her head without lifting her eyes. Marius could see her hands shaking as she clenched them together behind her back.

The gentleman seized a handful of Cosette's tattered skirt and lifted it past her knee, exposing her skinny legs. Marius lurched forward without thinking, blind rage igniting inside him at such a display of disrespect, but another pair of hands had seized him from behind.

"What's this about, boy?" asked Marius's captor.

The threadbare dandy sneered. "This bourgeois pig was making eyes at the Lark."

Marius's captor laughed aloud, releasing him. "Think she's pretty, do you?" he asked, sliding a thin arm around the quiet girl's waist. Marius could now see that he was an older man with a long gray beard and wicked beady eyes. He laughed again and pulled Cosette against him obscenely, making a crude gesture with his free hand. If the younger man had not produced a dangerous-looking dagger from somewhere and brandished it at Marius's throat, he would have thrown himself at the stranger—even the blade was hardly enough to keep him away, but an anxious look from Cosette herself had held him back at the last moment.

"I'll free you," he cried suddenly. "I'll come for you, Cosette! I'll steal you away!"

The girl stared sadly at him as the two men dragged her into the tenement, and before the door slammed he fancied he could see a tear glinting on her hollow cheek.


	4. Babet

At that time in Paris, there was a renowned tooth-puller called Babet whose wagon could often be seen in a little park near the Rue de la Flotte. The low price of his services was the talk of the poor, and for this reasonability he had become extremely popular with the lower classes. On this particular day the cart was there, and Babet's young mistress could be seen scurrying back and forth, gathering a crowd, for he planned to offer a free tooth-pulling to one lucky Parisian that noon.  
There was also in that crowd a haggard old woman with no front teeth: It was Fantine, of course, who had begun her quest to find Cosette by haphazardly wandering the streets, and something about the reddish tint in the hair of Babet's mistress had caught her eye, so here she had stopped. Her cobwebby gray shawl nearly concealed the long, slim black case tucked under her skinny arm.

The little mistress seized the corner of the wagon and hoisted herself up above the crowd. "M'sieur Babet will pull a tooth for free today!" she growled, her scratchy voice almost fading into the murmur of the crowd. "Anyone in for a free tooth-pulling? All he asks is you let everyone know what a smooth affair the whole thing can be. Free, painless tooth-pulling!"

Fantine la Blonde hugged her shawl tighter around her bony shoulders, secretly weighing the case in her hand and the idea in her mind. If it could bring in a few sous… She nodded to herself. Here goes.

"Painless?" Fantine shrieked suddenly, her own shrill voice easily eclipsing the near-grunt of the girl. "You call it painless?" Faces in the crowd were turning to her; Fantine pulled her cheeks back in a macabre grin to display the gap in her teeth. She knew full well that the job had not been done tidily so many years ago, but in Montreuil-sur-Mer the fee had been waived for someone who was willing to sell the teeth once they were removed from the head—she had hardly cared how poorly-executed the operation was once the money had been sent to her child. As it was, even years later, it was obvious that her gums had been torn. "See what Monsieur Babet did to me?" she demanded of the crowd. "And he charged to do that to my mouth!"

The girl's own gap-toothed mouth had fallen open at the unexpected interruption. "Well, why didn't ya sell 'im back the teeth?" she asked Fantine, a street accent emerging as she departed from her salesman's script. "'E pays a right bit more 'n 'e charges, that's for sure!"

"He—he wouldn't take them!" Fantine stammered, thinking quickly. She had never met this Monsieur Babet, of course, but he was certainly competition for her own budding practice in the Rue de la Flotte, and times were hard.

"Wotcher! Wouldn't take 'em? Cou, miss, the other's you got there look right pretty! What was wrong with the front ones, ey?"

Fantine crossed her arms and glared at the girl. Affecting her best lisp (a tendency she had spent a notable amount of time overcoming) she retorted almost desperately: "I donn knnow. He thaid for me to pay and go, tho I did."

A few people in the crowd began to murmur; then the volume grew until the group had gone so far as to surge forward and shake the cart, knocking the poor little mistress to the ground and demanding, almost with one voice, that Babet himself emerge and explain himself. Fantine hurried over to where the girl had fallen and offered a hand, helping her to her feet. "I'm terribly sorry," she whispered, but to her surprise the girl grinned and stuck out her free hand.

"It's Éponine! You really shook this lot up, dincha? Good fer you, miss! 'E 'ad yer teeth out, indeed! Anybody could tell right off that lump o' mess in yer mouth ain't M'sieur's work, that's for sure! Cou, lookit 'em riot!" and she dropped Fantine's hand and hurried to the little wagon, where she began knocking frantically on the door, calling for her master to come forth.

Fantine spent the briefest of moments trying to sort out what had just passed between this girl Éponine and herself, but eventually decided that it was useless and abandoned the endeavor.

At the moment she was making this decision, Babet's door flew open, knocking Éponine aside, and revealed the man himself. He was frail, small, and sharply dangerous looking; in his hand, he brandished a silver dentist's key.

"What the hell is all this rumpus about?" he cried in a voice as thin as his body. "Éponine! It isn't noon yet—what's going on?"

"They don't believe you can do a good pull, m'sieur, that's all it is. They want to see yer skill, is all," Éponine said quickly, bowing her head (and grinning at Fantine from beneath her lashes).

"A good pull?" Babet repeated. "Ridiculous! Of course I can do a good pull!" And, addressing himself to the calming crowd, he demanded, in a gratingly nasal tone, "What would keep you from waiting another half-hour, after all? A good pull, indeed! Very well, then, who's up for a free tooth-pulling?"

Fantine saw several heads turn in her direction, questions written on anonymous faces, and she saw the opportunity to step forward. "M'sieur—" she began.

"God, not you, hussy! I daresay you've had all the teeth pulled you can handle!" Babet interjected.

Fantine bristled and squared her thin shoulders, letting her cotton shawl sag slightly. "A tooth-pulling from you? Indeed," she sneered. "I am willing to wager that I can pull a tooth with twice your skill, m'sieur—having never done it before! I am willing to bet these on it!" and at last she produced the case and opened it, letting the dental keys Javert had given her glint in the murky morning sunlight.

The crowd pressed slightly closer; Babet, with a pride that far outstripped his stature, strode toward her and took one of the dental keys in his free hand, weighing it against the silver one that was his own. "These aren't half bad," he murmured, and looked up at Fantine, eyeing her suspiciously. He seemed to start, and his pale eyes flicked toward her missing front teeth, then up to her frazzled hair. "You weren't a blonde once, were you?" he asked with a touch of sincerity.

Fantine nodded and took her key back from his papery fingers. "And if I win," she said aloud, "you will have to take your cart and move it elsewhere, for I have set up a business in the Rue de la Flotte, and I believe you'll interfere with it by staying here."

"Very well," Babet declared. "We have a—" he smirked again "—a duel! Now, we'll need two volunteers. You're all in luck today, aren't you? Two free pulls instead of one! Come on, be quick!"

An old man dropped onto a stool that had suddenly appeared before Fantine, and nearby she saw Monsieur Babet in a similar position, brandishing his glimmering silver key over some poor Parisian's face. She wrinkled her nose. Certainly a silver dental key would be impractical?

"I'm rooting fer ya, miss!" Éponine croaked from nearby.

"Ready?" asked Babet.

Fantine nodded, and from the corner of her eye she saw Babet swoop into motion, every move that of a showman.

She inhaled, palming her key she had reclaimed from Babet (who had launched into a flowery speech about the history of dentistry and his own personal conquests in the matter). It was not very heavy. Her patient grinned at her, and pointed to the stub of a broken tooth at the front of his lower jaw.

Remembering one of the worst moments in her life, Fantine clumsily fitted the end of the key over the stub and, without any ado, wrenched it downward.

The man stiffened and made a slight gurgling sound, but it was drowned out by the screams of Babet's patient, whose tooth was slowly, tortuously coming out at the same moment. Éponine appeared from nowhere with rags for the patients' bleeding mouths, and Fantine took a moment to take stock of the little duel.

Her patient was sitting happily, holding his tooth between two fingers and staunching the blood flow with his other hand. "Practically painless," she heard him declare, muffled by the rag in his mouth. "And it helps that it's a woman, you know." Several of the men chuckled darkly. Fantine rolled her eyes.

Babet's patient, on the other hand, had not taken the little operation so easily. He was a younger man, and he was screaming in pain. Fantine saw that Éponine was grinning at her, but she chose to ignore it. The duel had finished and, through a stroke of nothing but luck, Fantine had been given a better patient, and she had somehow won.

A pressure on her shoulder; Fantine turned and found herself facing a darkly handsome young man with black eyes and hair. He twisted his sour face into an eerie smile. "And where might a potential customer find your shop, Madame?" he asked, his voice soft and, somehow, dangerous.

Fantine was immediately wary. "A customer? Indeed!"

He chuckled, a sound that put Fantine even less at ease, and continued, "Yes, madame, a customer. I inquire not for myself, but for a friend." The frightening dandy smiled, revealing even teeth.

"And who inquires?" she demanded.

"I am called Montparnasse."

Fantine hid her astonishment perfectly, keeping her suspicious gaze on his face and fighting the start that he would have certainly felt, for his white hand still rested on her partially-bare shoulder. "Your real name?"

He laughed again. "A clever wench, indeed! That's as real a name as any. As for my friend, he is called Thénardier, suspicious woman, and he will come within the week if your skill does not falter. But where shall he go?"

"The Rue de la Flotte," Fantine said, almost too quickly, but the gentleman did not notice.

"Before the week is out," he repeated, and he dissolved into the crowd.


	5. Waiting

"Before the week is out!" Fantine cried for what may have been the hundredth time. "Where is he? He said he'd come before the week is out!"

Inspector Javert smiled thinly over his newspaper. Fantine had been pacing around the police station for hours, clutching one of the dental keys in her hand and waving it to punctuate her occasional outbursts. She had breathlessly related the story of what had passed in the little park upon reentering the building a few days earlier, and had immediately taken to the upstairs room, bustling about in preparation for the custom of these particular men. When that had only taken a few hours, she had begun the pacing, only stopping long enough to sleep at night.

"He still has time to keep that promise," said Javert. "The week isn't out yet; it's only Tuesday."

Fantine stood still at last, crossing her arms. "Don't you understand? Thénardier is coming here, and the boy Montparnasse with him! They are the ones who have my Cosette! I'll have my revenge, and so soon!"

"Have you thought about what this revenge will be?" Javert asked. "Or do you plan to do whatever comes to mind when he arrives? And I'll have you know that I can't turn my eyes from murder, so don't even let that come into your pretty head. You have to plan these things."

"What do you suggest, then?"

Another smile passed across Javert's narrow face. "Plan it out. Do what you will with them, but have an idea before the moment arrives."

Fantine looked down at the dental key clutching in her bony hand. "I could hit him with this," she said absently. Javert shook his head and went back to his newspaper.

The door flew open, and a gust of wind swirled into the station, upsetting a few of Javert's papers, bringing with it a very flustered young man. "Madame la Blonde?" he gasped upon seeing Fantine.

"Monsieur Pontmercy," she replied levelly. "Why have you come here?"

Marius closed the door and slumped against it. He was very out of breath. "I have seen the most wonderful girl! She lives with an awful old man and a wicked gentleman, and she is dressed all in rags, but she is still such a dazzling vision! I have to steal her. She stays with an old man called Thénardier, and the things he does—!"

Javert had lowered the newspaper again and was watching the two of them very carefully. Fantine caught his eye, her own face expressing utter disbelief. "Monsieur Pontmercy," she said gently, "did you learn the young lady's name?"

"Cosette," the boy said proudly.

Fantine nodded tersely. "What a lovely name," she muttered. "What did the girl look like? Is she being taken care of?"

"Oh, no, madame! She is thin and wears nothing but rags. And she is so quiet! She's afraid of everything; you should have seen the way the old man treated her! Oh, madame, I have to steal her away! But my grandfather will never approve of it. She isn't well-off, and if I brought a waif like that to him— oh, madame, I don't know what to do!"

Javert folded the newspaper and dropped it on his desk. "Bring the girl here."

Marius started. "Monsieur?"

"Oh, yes," said Fantine, "this is Inspector Javert. Inspector, this is Monsieur Pontmercy. He brought me to Paris."

"I said, bring the girl here."

"Oh, monsieur! Thank you so much, monsieur! I'll do it! Thank you, monsieur, madame!" and, bowing over and over to both of them, he scrambled back out into the Rue de la Flotte.

Fantine turned on Javert. "Bring her here? And what good will that do? To have her for only a moment, then watch her be carried off again, this time by a simpering idiot of a boy?"

"Madame la Blonde, I do believe you underestimate me," Javert replied calmly. "You heard the boy as well as I did. 'I'll steal her'? Taking a child from its guardian could easily be reason enough for incarceration. And then, with the boy locked away, where shall the girl go but into your arms?"

Fantine grinned, displaying the gap in her teeth. "My dear inspector," she said, clearly suppressing an outpouring of emotions, "I believe this is the start of a beautiful relationship."


	6. Names Beginning in the Letter 'B'

When the door to the police station opened again, Fantine was down the stairs in an instant. She had retired to her room at length, content with the idea of Javert's plot to bring Cosette back to her, but even the suggestion that Montparnasse and Thénardier might have arrived at last had her out of her little parlor on the ground floor police station in the same amount of time it took Javert to rise from his position behind the desk.  
It was not, however, those figures from Fantine's past, but was instead a newer enemy.

Frail-looking Babet stepped grandly into the station, Éponine trailing behind with a face that was completely devoid of expression until she spotted Fantine. Her oddly fishy eyes lit up at the sight of the old woman and a gappy grin spread across her face, but she remained silent.

Ignoring the presence of Javert, which Fantine thought rather bold, Babet wrinkled his nose at the little station and then turned to Fantine herself. "I'd like a word," he said coldly, and added "Up there," gesturing in the direction of the stairs she had just descended.

Fantine acquiesced and led him up to her little room, preparing an excuse for her behavior as she went. She had not thought this far ahead when working out her plan—perhaps Javert had been right. She ought to think things through and wait in the future.

Fantine turned to Babet, who was observing the little room with distaste. "I suppose you'll fix it up," he remarked, but she ignored this.

"What do you want?"

"To work out a deal. Let's say, half of all your profits, once customers start coming in? I think I'm being fair."

Fantine narrowed her eyes. "Why?"

 

Once Fantine and the tooth-puller had disappeared from sight, Javert plopped back down in his desk chair and pulled a stack of papers nearer. He was picking up a pen when he felt a pair of eyes glued to him in the stillness, and he looked up irritably.  
The waif girl grinned and took an eager step closer.

Javert scowled. "What?"

 

"Well, madame, you have damaged my business with your antics the other day. So I expect to maintain at least some of my old profits as I am forced to remove to elsewhere."

Fantine sighed. "Monsieur Babet, I assure you—"

"Come now, Madame la Blonde, let's dispense with the aliases, hmm? I'm sure you would understand a little more of my reasoning if you'd revert to my old name—Bamatabois."

"Bamatabois," the woman repeated slowly. Something changed behind her eyes, but she said tersely, "Well, what of it?"

"Really, darling, I know you remember the young man who ended your career in prostitution so abruptly. And if I'm not mistaken, you were arrested by the same inspector I passed on my way in. Interesting how this small world works, isn't it? Because I have also made an acquaintance you might remember from your youth, Fantine la Blonde: a certain old gentleman called Thénardier, and, though he will not remember you, there's no real guarantee that I won't accidentally say something to him before he arrives here for a tooth-pulling one day. After all, you probably want him out of the way in order to reclaim your daughter his serving girl, if I'm not mistaken, and I can't have a friend wander so unknowingly into peril without a little… convincing." He held out a claw-like hand.

Without warning, Fantine flung herself at the intruder.

 

The house on the Rue Quernie was empty that day but for its smallest inhabitant, the quiet little servant girl called Cosette. She knew her master would not return until late in the night, perhaps morning, so she had decided to spend the evening doing as little as she could.

As it was, she did not expect a visitor to come barging through the front door only moments after Monsieur Thénardier had disappeared from the street.

She even less expected that visitor to be Him, the young man she had met a few days before, who had not left her thoughts since their eyes had met as she sat dreaming in her flowerbed.

The young man closed the door behind himself and doubled over into a hasty bow. "Mademoiselle Cosette?" he whispered. "My name is Marius."

 

From the shadows of an alley, the following conversation was overheard:

"Well, how goes it, Thénardier?"

"Both well and unwell, I'm afraid. Tell me, lad, what do you think of the Lark?"

"She could use a good bath. Is this about that bourgeois?"

"In a way. I began thinking after he left, and I've decided to make the Lark my mistress."

"Well, each to his own taste. Hey, whatever happened to your daughter—?"

"Babet beat you to it. As for the other one and her mother—"

"Yes, yes, Claquesous and Hell, you've told me before. Listen, you can't take a new mistress looking like that, old man."

"And why not?"

"There's a tooth right up front that's almost black."

"There is?" Pause. "Damn! That might explain why she went so white when I mentioned it."

"You know, I saw a demonstration a few days ago. There's a woman tooth-puller in the Rue de la Flotte. She's new to the business. You should give her a call."

"Rue de la Flotte?"

"Yes."

"Sounds like an idea. Do you think she's still open at this hour?"

"Only one way to find out, isn't there?"

 

Javert sent a poisonous look over his shoulder, but Éponine continued to blithely stare at his paperwork. At last, fed up with the intrusion, he slammed a heavy hand over his work and snarled, "What do you want?"

Éponine grinned at him. "I can read!"

"How very intriguing," the inspector replied, practically choking on his own disdain. "I must ask you to—"

"Cou! M'sieur has to be at the job they're pullin' tonight! If he don't show my old man'll have 'im!" and she dashed to the foot of the stairs, croaking Babet's name over and over until Fantine appeared in the doorway. "Ain't 'e here, ma'am?"

Fantine pressed her lips together in a firm line. "Monsieur Bam- Babet has stepped out."

"Cou!" Éponine said again.

"That is a word that I have already tired of hearing," Javert grumbled from his desk.

"I've got to get to the job then, ma'am. He might be waitin', who knows?" And the girl left the station.

Javert was on his feet the moment the door had closed. "'Stepped out,' has he? I told you I wouldn't have murder, Madame la Blonde, and I—"

"I didn't kill anyone!" Fantine protested indignantly, but already Javert had brushed past her into the upper room. He halted in a brief moment's shock at the scene before him, but recovered immediately.

There was a long streak of blood across the floor, starting in the middle of the room and stretching out toward the wall. Its source was a large lump covered in Fantine's blanket.

"You killed him," Javert said again, a mild question hidden in his words.

"I didn't!" repeated Fantine, and she hurried over to the far wall and removed the blanket, revealing the unconscious form of Babet, his face covered in bleeding scratches. As if to prove Fantine's point, the prostrate man moaned slightly; Fantine silenced him with a sharp kick to the ribcage and glanced guiltily at the inspector.

"And what inspired this outburst, madame?" Javert asked stiltedly.

"Oh, m'sieur, it's Bamatabois! He threatened Cosette and he told me he was great friends with Thénardier! I couldn't help myself, m'sieur!" she said, dropping to her knees beside Babet's unconscious form and pulling the blanket back over him.

"I suppose next you'll be telling me I can't lock you up because you have to send money to a made-up daughter in another town," said Javert.

A little confused, Fantine lifted her eyes and saw that Inspector Javert was making a joke. "M'sieur?"

"Oh, come now, Fantine, you've managed to aid in the capture of a quarter of the Patron-Minette and you expect me to be angry? Here now, help me lift him and we'll lock him up downstairs." He removed the blanket again in a swift motion and seized Babet beneath the arms. Fantine, still hardly daring to believe her luck, moved around and took up his legs.

As they were moving Babet down the stairs, Fantine said meekly, "You know, inspector, if another of my customers happened to be wanted for something it would take much for me to scratch him up a bit. Then, once he's out cold, you could put him in jail, no problem."

Javert smiled thinly. "A charming notion, Madame la Blonde."

"So we have a deal?"

They had reached the ground floor, and Babet had been deposited in the nearest cell. Javert closed the door behind the unconscious criminal and locked it, then turned back to Fantine. "Well, these are desperate times, Madame la Blonde, and I suppose that means desperate measures are called for."

A gap-toothed grin broke across Fantine's face. "Excellent."


	7. Marius is Hasty

In a matter of hours, Fantine found herself in the middle of one of her most viciously sweet dreams come to life.

She was in her parlor, wielding her favorite of the dentists' keys, and the customer perched on the stool was Thénardier himself.

She had been delighted to find that the man had not aged well, though Fantine knew that the same was true for herself. He sported a scruffy grey beard and his hair was clearly thinning. The skin on his face was loose and wrinkled—Fantine fancied that his square, brutish features almost resembled those of the waif Éponine—and his small eyes were a menacing shade of black, ringed with dark circles. He was leering at her now, his lipless mouth hanging open to display a prominent rotting tooth. Fantine felt her knees shaking and she used the handle of the key to pick a speck of dirt from beneath one of her long fingernails. "Won't be long now," she whispered to the nail, imagining that it, like the rest of her, was trembling with anticipation and bloodlust. She flexed her fingers, visualized sinking them into that greyish skin, and slowly approached the old man. Her instincts had screamed for her to launch herself at him the moment he appeared in the doorway, but she had remembered Javert's advice and drawn the thing out, relishing buildup. Only a few moments more…

Thénardier winked at her. "Well, ma'am, be quick about it, ey? I've got a girl waiting at home."

"You— you're going to be wed?" stammered Fantine. "I— ah— how fortunate you are, indeed, monsieur."

"Not wed," he said, grinning. "I'm taking a new mistress."

"Oh?"

"Yes, my ragged serving girl. She's grown, if you take my meaning," he said, winking again. "I've had care of her since she was a tiny thing."

"Her mother never came back for her?"

Thénardier frowned. "What?"

"Nothing, monsieur, nothing. Shall we continue?" she asked, approaching him and laying a hand on his forehead. Fantine dropped the dental key and raised her other arm, arching her long fingers and bringing them closer to his flesh—

"Cosette and I are going to be married!"

Both Thénardier and Fantine jumped in surprise, turning to see a rosy-cheeked young Marius Pontmercy standing in the doorway.

"What?" demanded the former innkeeper. Marius's eyes widened as he realized what he had done; he slowly back away from the old man. "You! The bourgeois! You think you'll steal the girl from me? Ha!" Thénardier spat, advancing on him.

"B— but Cosette loves me! You can't keep her forever!" he spluttered.

"Oh, can't I? I'll take her away from that place and lock her up! You'll never see her again, and neither shall the rest of you righteous students!" Then he spun around, glaring at Fantine. "As for you, madame, anyone who associates with this sort of person has no business with people like me! So enjoy his company, for you shan't see me about this place again! Atop a police station to boot!" And he stormed out of the room.

Fantine was silent, staring stonily at the empty doorway.

A long moment passed. "Madame la Blonde?" Marius ventured at length.

Her icy eyes slid away from the door and fastened onto him. "Get out," she hissed.

Marius was eager to comply.


	8. Éponine's Errand

In a matter of months, despite old Thénardier's warnings, Fantine's dental parlor was doing a very good business. It seemed that filthy-mouthed men, in both the literal and figurative sense, had taken to the idea of a lady tooth-puller with an unsettling delight. As these creatures shambled through the police station, Javert would indicate to the waiting Fantine with a brief nod if he recognized them as criminals; if he did, she would appear moments later at the top of the stairs, grinning and wiping her hands with a red-spotted handkerchief.

The waif Éponine had, upon failing to find Babet, taken to loitering in the police station and generally frustrating Javert. Fantine occasionally slipped her a few coins run down to the bakery while she and the inspector lugged an unconscious victim down the stairs. With every cell door that slammed shut behind a new inmate, Javert's thin smile grew a little wider between his heavy whiskers; it was not long at all until "Madame la Blonde" finally became "Fantine."

And then, as the first signs of spring began to manifest in the little park on the corner, the inspector surprised Fantine with the notion of a day-trip about the town in an effort to find Cosette, of whom no one had seen any sign since Thénardier had pledged to hide her from Marius Pontmercy. It was an uneventful excursion, primarily characterised by Fantine's blithe chatter and Javert's permissive silence, though it was true he deigned to offer her his arm as they walked side by side. The real surprise was discovered as they returned to the Rue de la Flotte, where they passed several workmen who, leaving the police station, tipped their hats to Javert.

"What were they doing here?" Fantine asked guardedly, her eyes fastened suspiciously to the backs of the retreating strangers.

Inspector Javert's thin lips twitched. "Look inside."

As she hastened into the station, Fantine saw the strange old beggar man out of the corner of her eye, hiding himself in a doorway. She wondered vaguely why he wasn't confronting her with an open palm, but the thought had passed before she had taken the time to consider the fact that he had never actually appeared before her when she was with Inspector Javert.

Fantine passed through the station and up the stairs, where she was greeted with a heavy iron trapdoor in the middle of her little room that had not been there that morning.

"Open it," said Javert's voice from somewhere in the station below.

She did this with ease—the door was not as weighty as it looked—and found beneath it a wide chute, and, at the bottom, beheld the smirking face of Inspector Javert himself.

"What do you think?" he called up to her. "Useful, hmm?"

"It'll save me a lot of back pain, that's for sure. Where does it lead? Where are you standing?" she asked, her excitement beginning to grow. "Is that the hallway? Right near the cells?"

"The same."

Fantine beamed. "We're officially partners, then. This chute's here permanently, so I must be too."

The inspector did not answer. He simply smiled again and moved away, out of sight. Fantine dropped the trapdoor with a resounding clang.

 

"I thought you were with Babet," Montparnasse said, studying Éponine warily. "He'd never forgive you."

"'E's gone, disappeared, 'e is," the waif replied. She grinned slyly at him and pulled at his cravat.

"You're sure?"

Éponine propped her chin against his chest, "Mistrustful, ain't we? Ain't seen any bit o' ol' M'sieur since th' lady tooth-puller showed up. She's scared 'im, tha's what 'appened."

"So why are you here?" Montparnasse asked. His expression remained skeptical, but his fingers were trailing down her back.

Éponine seized Montparnasse's arms and draped them around her waist. "One thing, 'n' we'll start."

"Very well. What is it?" The words were stilted.

Using every bit of her somewhat limited charm, Éponine pressed herself against the young murderer and whispered, "Wha' did ya do wif th' Lark?"

 

"Here?" cried Marius, "Oh, in this horrible place?"

"Fi'ty fi'ty-two," Éponine recited again, rolling her eyes.

Marius seized both of her hands in his, pressing her knuckles to his lips. "How can I ever repay you for what you have done for me? Bringing me to my poor darling Cosette! I shall free her, and—"

"I don't want anythin'," the girl said bluntly, jerking her hands free from his grip, "'n' I hafta go. Good luck wif yer lady." And she scampered away.

As the last sounds of her retreat faded from the alley, the young baron Marius Pontmercy steeled himself and approached the door to the Gorbeau Tenement.


	9. Inspector Pontmercy

Fantine had acquired an old file and was using it to smooth the edges of her long nails. She was perched, with a surprising amount of familiarity, on the edge of the inspector's desk, her knees crossed beneath the new green dress she'd bought with some of the earnings from her now-popular business. Javert himself was seated just behind, thumbing through some of the papers stacked neatly in the center of the desk and giving Fantine's rear a very wide birth.

"How much longer 'till we find my daughter, d'you think?"

The question, spoken in a bright, conversational tone, gave the inspector pause. Fantine had not even looked up from her file. Choking back the obvious, pessimistic response—Thénardier had long since pledged to hide the girl away, whatever that meant, and there had been no luck finding her so far—Javert pressed his lips together in a firm line before answering. "Have you given any thought as to what will happen afterward? When you have her again?"

Fantine shrugged, still not turning to face him. "I thought I'd leave Paris. Hate it here."

The file jerked back and forth with the faintest scratching sound.

"You know," Javert began, but he stopped, licked his lips, and cleared his throat.

The file continued in its rhythmic motions.

"You know," he repeated, "I might retire from the force."

Fantine did not respond. For a moment, the only sound in the room was the file scuffing across the edges of her fingernails.

"I might retire from the force. I thought about moving to— to England, or something like that."

"England?" Fantine repeated vaguely. Javert got the sense that she hadn't heard anything else he'd said.

"Yes, you know— move there. To England." He cleared his throat again, tugging at the suddenly-stifling neck of his greatcoat. "And if you thought to take Cosette away from Paris, I could escort the two of you there. Just across the sea. Two women travelling alone, you know, on a ship—"

"Anything you say," Fantine muttered absently. She dropped the file onto the desk and popped her fingers into her mouth for a moment, drawing them back out and spreading them to admire her handiwork. At last she turned to Javert, curling her hands into little claws, displaying the freshly-sharpened nails. "Fierce, right?" she said with a smile.

Javert huffed a little. "Very."

Just as Fantine was pulling her mouth back into that toothless grin, the door to the station flew open and Marius Pontmercy stumbled in. As their eyes met the tooth-puller's face darkened, but the young man disregarded her animosity and hurried forward, and seizing both of her hands in his. "I've found her, Madame la Blonde! I have found my Cosette!"

"Where?" Fantine cried; her grudge evaporated at once.

"In the most horrible of places in all Paris! There is an old tenement, numbered fifty fifty-two, a lair of thieves and all kinds of horrid people, or so said the woman who answered the door. She was an awful thing too, with a mustache coming in just so on her lip! But I asked about a young girl, and this funny look came across her face, and just then I realized there was a tiny window box on the second floor with those big roses, the kind poor Cosette grew in the Rue Quernie, but the woman said there was no such girl there. I'd been told that was the place, though, but at that moment that terrifying old man showed up, old Thénardier, and he told me that if the girl was there, it was because she was a thief and deserved to be, and he threatened me, so I fled. But I am certain she is there, Madame la Blonde! If only there was some way to get in—!"

Fantine dropped Marius's hands and yanked him into a hug, practically leaping off the desk in her delight. She released the baron and clapped her hands, saying, "There is a way in, Monsieur Pontmercy, and only here could you have found it!"

"What?"

Fantine clapped her hands again and whirled around. "My dear inspector, certainly our young friend here would be allowed in if he were, say, police?"

The inspector, who was still irritated at having been ignored, shrugged. "He isn't, though."

"And you couldn't dress him as one and teach him what to say?"

Javert studied Fantine's radiant face for a moment, then reluctantly pushed himself to his feet and said, "I suppose Cosette is as good as rescued, Monsieur Baron. Come along." And he left the room. After shooting a grateful glance in Fantine's direction, Marius trotted along behind.

Fantine waited for a beat after they had left before launching herself into the streets. After a commission for a nearby scribe and an envelope and a coin passed to an urchin, she returned to the station to find the young baron buttoned up into a grey greatcoat that seemed to be a size too large, an impressive bicorne hat resting on his black curls, and a club clutched in his ink-stained fist.

The real inspector was back in his chair, his arms crossed across his chest and that thin smile resting proudly on his rough features. When Fantine entered, he said immediately, "Well?" After a moment she understood that it was not a question about where she had been, but a request for a complement on his work at disguising the silly young student as a third-class inspector.

"Oh, Javert, you're brilliant!" Fantine cried, and both Marius and the inspector grinned at the praise. "Well, now I suppose you can go retrieve your ladylove."

Marius went to Javert and shook his hand, then to Fantine and kissed both of hers, only tripping twice on the hem of the coat. "Thank you so much for your kindness! Without your wonderful help, I would certainly never be able to rescue my beloved! You two have been nothing but good to me!" he said earnestly. "I shall never be able to repay your kindness!"

As he was leaving the station, the waif Éponine entered. The baron, in his joy, shouted her name and pulled her into an embrace, but Éponine wriggled free and darted away, sheltering herself behind Javert's chair until the young man was gone. The inspector's posture went rigid, distaste playing across his features. "Fantine," he said carefully, "I believe someone is here to see you."

The tooth-puller laughed, and went to the stairs. "Oh no, inspector, she keeps coming back to visit you."

"Oh God," Javert grumbled, resting his forehead in his hands.

Upstairs, they heard Fantine dissolving into a fit of giggles.


	10. Combien je regrette

Éponine moved around to the side of his chair, still kneeling, both hands clutching the armrest. "M'sieur?" she rasped.

The inspector said nothing, his jaw clenched beneath his bushy whiskers.

"M'sieur?" she said again. It seemed she was making an attempt to lower her voice into some kind of conspiratorial whisper. "'Ey, m'sieur?"

His stony silence was not deterring her. Javert rolled his eyes up toward the ceiling—and, he thought briefly, Fantine—before heaving a great sigh and asking, "What?"

She grinned again, displaying her missing teeth. Javert scowled. This waif's teeth were scattered in her head, patchy, and those that remained were yellowing. The overall effect was nothing like Fantine, who was only missing her front two (which was rather orderly) and whose others were all strikingly white. The waif girl leaned closer.

"When I was wiv 'Parnasse yesterd'y, I thought abou' you."

This remark was met with absolute silence.

At first, Javert was not sure how to react. The pallid flesh of his cheeks and forehead began to fade into a sort of purplish color as the full meaning of this statement took root. He kept his thin lips pressed together, mentally scrambling for some sort of response.

"Montparnasse?" he said at last, the word coming out more loudly and his voice much higher than he had hoped. He cleared his throat. "Montparnasse? Is that what you mean?"

Éponine moved in closer, the stubby fingers of one hand sliding over to his arm, picking at the cloth of his sleeve. "Yeah," she muttered, her chin tucked against her collarbone as she kept her gaze on the sleeve. "I 'ad to offer 'im somefin fer somefin, y'know?"

"Montparnasse?" Javert said again. "You offered Montparnasse—"

Her head snapped up, the grin back in place. "'Course, m'sieur, it ain't like 'e 'ad to 'ave somefin to offer back, y'know? If… if someone wan'ed somefin from me—someone other 'an 'Parnasse or M'sieur Babet—I think somefin could be worked out, ey?"

"Montparnasse and Babet?" Javert spluttered. "Both?"

"An' M'sieur Gueulemer, once," said the girl. "Pa 'as me workin' wiv any of 'is friends. An' all of 'em." She laughed. "But not all a' th' same time, mind!"

"Your… your father? Well, who is your father, girl?" the inspector demanded. "How are you loitering around this place all the time if you have a family at home? I'm sure they'd like you to stay there."

"M' mum got sick 'n' passed on. M' pa don't care wha' I do, now 't m' sister's off wiv Claquesous all th' time. An' anyways, 'e don' wan' more folks t' care for than th' Lark, y'know?"

"What?"

"'E's got to feed th' Lark. She don't eat much, but 'e's got to."

"The Lark," Javert repeated, his face regaining its normal pallor at last. "Now, isn't that Fantine's daughter?"

"Yeah, tha's 'er. How d'you think 'at silly Marius found 'er, eh? Think 'e found 'er 'imself? 'E couldn't find 'is own arse with two 'ands, a lantern, and a servant. Tha's wha' I needed from 'Parnasse, that is. Wha' they did wiv th' Lark. 'E tol' me, sure 'nough, soon 's I'd let 'im do wha' 'e wan'ed."

"You've known where the girl is all this time?" Javert asked. His voice was low and cold.

Even Éponine picked up on the dangerous tone he was taking; she released his sleeve, pushing herself away from his chair. "I di'n't know where they took 'er. Cou, m'sieur, whatcha think I let 'Parnasse at me fer, then, eh? I foun' out where she was, fi'ty fi'ty-two, 'n' I took tha' boy there, I did. I did it fer Ma'am Fantine!"

Javert rose swiftly to his feet. "You've been lying to us, have you?"

"I ain't said a thing!"

"By omission. We've been searching for that girl for months, and you've been wandering in and out of the station the whole time. You knew where she was all along—"

"M' pa hid 'er!"

"But before that you knew. You knew about the Rue Quernie before that silly baron found out. You could have let us know, but you chose to keep quiet. Why?"

"I di'n't—"

"And, to top it all off, you've known the location of dangerous criminals! Montparnasse, Gueulemer, Claquesous, Thénardier! You've kept it all hidden from us! Why?"

"It's me own pa! 'E may not like me, may leave me to m'self 'alf th' time—all th' time—bu' 'e's all I got lef' now 't 'Zelma's run off!"

Javert's eyes narrowed. He looked down at his desk for a moment, sucking in his upper lip, before he let out a long sigh and turned back to the cowering girl. "Of course, poor thing," he said quickly, "of course your family loyalties are respectable." Another pause. "Here, follow me."

"M'sieur?" she ventured timidly. "M'sieur, you ain't mad?"

"Of course not. Now come along. I want you to see something in the back room."

Javert brushed past her and stalked to the back of the station, holding the door for Éponine as she passed. The girl, ecstatic and being forgiven so suddenly, didn't see the large ring of keys gripped in the inspector's gloved fist.

The door closed behind them.

From within, there was a yelp and a sound like the slamming of a gate.

A moment later, inspector Javert returned to the front room, pocketing his keys.

"I'm going out," he called up the stairs. And he did.

 

 

Fantine was breathless.

She had hardly heard Javert's words before he left the station an hour or so ago. She bit her lip, the words she had said to the scribe running through her head for the hundredth time. Had she worded it well enough?

_Monsieur Thénardier:_

It wasn't too cold, was it? Too stiff and formal? But "dear" had seemed so out of place.

_Monsieur Thénardier:_

_I send you this urgent…_

Should she have asked him to underscore the word "urgent"? But certainly that would have been overkill.

_I send you this urgent message to let you know that the handsome young baron has abducted your serving-girl Cosette._

Cosette… she would be here any moment! She certainly hoped Thénardier arrived first.

_But, hoping to earn your favor, I have convinced him to lodge her here tonight. She will be waiting here for you to reclaim her, my good gentleman, in the Rue de la Flotte._

_Madame la Blonde_

Fantine pressed her trembling lips together. The last time she had sent Thénardier a letter, she had signed it "Fantine." Certainly there was no chance he would make a connection between the two names…

Not yet, at least.

Hearing the door of the station slam downstairs, she hesitantly rose to her feet. Should she tell Javert of her plan? He would be glad to hear that she was so close to revenge…

"Is there no one here? Madame la Blonde?"

The words were not spoken in Javert's bass growl, but a higher, sharper voice. Fantine flew to the top of the stairs just as Montparnasse stepped into view.

"Ah," said the young dandy, "there you are."

"Here I am," she repeated. "And you, too, are here. Is there anything I can do for you, monsieur?"

He advanced up a few steps. "I've a toothache, Madame la Blonde. I hoped you could tell me if it needed pulled."

"Yes, of course," the woman stammered. "But wouldn't Monsieur Thénardier be angry to hear you've come to me?"

"He doesn't need to know everything. May I come up?"

"Of course," Fantine said again, moving aside. The handsome young murderer slipped past her and into the room.

Fantine furrowed her brow. So, this was it! Tonight would wrap up the whole business: Montparnasse now, Thénardier later, and darling Cosette before the sun was up!

She lurched forward, fingers crooked, a cry escaping her lips; Montparnasse turned at the sudden movement to face her.

And then, she found herself stopping her attack under his gaze.

"Madame?" he asked, suspicion creeping across his ivory brow. She saw his long fingers creeping into his jacket pocket—for his knife? Good God, she'd botched the whole thing!

"I was—dancing!" she said quickly. "And singing. A bit."

The hand did not reemerge from the pocket. "Singing?"

"Yes— a— a song I learned from a waif girl. It was… But never mind that, monsieur, never mind it. You've a toothache, have you? Let's see it then. Have a seat, please."

The ice had not left the murderer's expression. "I'd like to see the song and dance."

Fantine inhaled deeply. His hand was twitching inside his pocket. Going for the knife. He did not believe her, of course. And he would not even hesitate to unsheathe that weapon and use it on her throat.

She had no choice.

Thank God she had learned a song from Éponine.

Fantine stepped side to side, arms around an invisible partner as she sang in a trembling voice:

"Combien je regrette mon bras si dodu, ma jambe bien faite et le temps perdu…"

Damn! That was all she knew of the song.

"Oui! Combien je regrette mon bras si dodu, ma jambe bien faite et le temps perdu," she sang again, modifying the tune of the last phrase.

And suddenly, Montparnasse was coming toward her.

Oh, God. This was the end, wasn't it?

But he seized her wrists in his white fingers and placed them at the back of his own neck. One of his hands came to rest on her shoulder, and the other in the small of her back. "Your dancing is deplorable," he said, "but I can hardly blame you, trying to go it alone."

And then, in a moment that began from nowhere, the two of them were whirling around the room. The old steps came back easily, Fantine's feet caught up in memories almost identical to this moment. If not for Montparnasse's handsomeness, she could almost be in this room again with Félix, sweet little Cosette asleep on the pallet in the corner, the flickering light of a half-melted candle illuminating abandoned essays and a rumpled bed…

"Ma jambe bien faite et ma vie perdu," she found herself singing.

" _Le temps_ perdu," Montparnasse corrected her. They still didn't miss a beat of dance. "Don't you know the rest of the song?"

And then, to the absolute surprise of Fantine, Montparnasse began to sing.

"Ma grand-mère un soir à sa fête de vin pur ayant bu deux doigts. Nous disait en branlant la tête que d'amoreux j'eux autre fois."

He had a rather nasal singing voice. Fantine couldn't help but wonder if anyone had ever heard it before. And lived.

"Monsieur?" she ventured. The pace of the dance had not slackened; she found herself panting for breath. An idea popping into her head, Fantine moved one hand down from his neck to his jacket, clutching the front pocket.

She felt his fingers flinch against her bodice; he stopped without any other warning. Fantine, launching herself into the next step, tripped over his unmoving foot. "Of course," said her companion. And he moved gracefully over to the chair, dropped into it and pointed into his mouth. "This one, here. It began hurting a few days ago, and it hasn't stopped."

Fantine was dazed. Had a handsome young dandy half her age, renowned for his misdeeds and murders, just danced with her? She pursed her lips, poking her tongue into the hole where her front teeth had been, and shook her head. "Right," she said, "your tooth."

Below, she heard the front door close. Montparnasse's head snapped up. "Who was that?" he demanded.

"The inspector, I'm sure," replied Fantine, hoping desperately that it wasn't Thénardier or Cosette. "Shall we get on with it?"

And then she leapt at him, knocking the chair over backward, prostrating them both, scratching wildly at the ivory flesh of his handsome face. "For—what—you—did—to—Co-sette!" she screamed, one syllable for each blow. The murderer was caught off-guard for a brief moment; he raised an arm in an attempt to protect his face and slid the other into his jacket pocket, fumbling for his knife.

It was not there.

Fantine made another gash in the skin of his cheek before ceasing her attack and leaning up. "Looking for this?" she asked with a little mock-pout, reaching into her own pocket and produced the missing blade. "You should be a little more careful who you dance with, you silly boy!" she grinned.

Montparnasse's eyes widened. "Who the hell _are_ you?"

 

Éponine was lying under a bench, glowering.

Inspector Javert had taken her down a narrow hallway lined with tiny cells, like a miniature prison, and had shoved her roughly into the first of these little rooms, locking the door behind.

Which meant that he didn't love her.

Or even want to be her friend.

Or acquaintance.

Unless, of course, there was some sort of jail-related fantasy he had… but then, why would he have gone away?

Once, before Babet, Montparnasse had taken Éponine to his flat, dressed her in fancy clothes, and then pulled her heavy skirts up around her waist.

She grinned at the stone floor of her cell.

That had been rather fun.

For that last hour or so, she had occupied herself with staring blankly through the bars of the cell. It had only taken a few moments for her to notice a large mattress in the middle of the corridor.

Just sitting there.

It was a rather nice-looking mattress, though a bit of straw was poking out of a corner. The middle of it was deeply indented as though a very fat person had lain there for many nights, and the fabric was covered in brownish speckles.

Éponine wondered what it was doing there.

Above, she heard a slight creaking sound, a clang, and a grunt.

And then there was a rush of sound.

And a massive WHUMP.

Éponine blinked.

Something had just fallen from the ceiling and landed on the mattress. Something rather large. And dark.

The waif girl clambered out from beneath the stone bench, crawling up to the grate and extending a skinny arm through the bars, prodding carefully at the something. Which proceeded to groan.

Éponine pressed her face against the bars of her cell, squinting to better make out the details of the something.

Her mouth dropped open.

"Montparnasse?"


	11. Kisses

Marius's hand was shaking so fiercely that his knock upon the old door of number fifty fifty-two was hardly as authoritative as he initially imagined it might be. The three strong raps he had expected became more of an urgent fluttering, like a flock of fledgling hummingbirds colliding with a window.

Ah well. It got the job done: the horrifying old landlady opened the door a crack, one rheumy grey eye peering out and resting on him suspiciously.

Marius opened his mouth and allowed a tiny squeak to escape—he cleared his throat quickly and tried again. "I— ahem— you have here— I have here a warrant, Madame, for the arrest of a young girl by the name of Cosette—I understand she is boarding with you. A pickpocket, that's what she is— what the warrant says," he stammered, feeling his cheeks grow warm.

There was a brief pause as the woman opened the door the rest of the way and peered at him. Marius could net help but stare at her thin mustache as he had done before.

"COGNE!" she bellowed suddenly. Marius jumped in surprise; his feet tangled in his oversized greatcoat and he fell to the ground, thrashing about in a wild attempt to free himself from the borrowed garment. He heard thunderous footsteps approaching him like a stampede from a storybook; Marius found enough sense to lie still as a mob of thieves trampled the ground on either side of him in their hasty escape from the old Gorbeau Tenement. He peeked out from beneath the bicorne hat and saw feet of all different sizes fleeing the building, many of them bare and calloused, pouring into the evening street.

The stampede seemed to last forever, though it could hardly have been more than a few moments. Marius, unable to free himself from the tangled coat, squirmed his way out of it and scrambled to his feet, peering into the shadowy crowd of criminals in search of one particular face. The inspector costume shed, he was nothing more than a bourgeois, a fact Marius kept in the front of his mind as he worked his way through the throng of panicking thieves attempting to dodge a young inspector who seemed to have melted into a pile of clothes.

A flash of red caught his eye—one of Cosette's massive roses was being trampled into the dirt. As Marius bent to retrieve it he felt a pair of thin fingers slide into his back pocket. He grabbed the offending wrist, spun around to face the would-be pickpocket—and cried out in disbelief.

"Cosette?"

The girl's drawn face split into an eerie grin; she twisted forward in his grip and deposited a rough kiss onto his slack jaw.

"Cosette?" he asked again. "Cosette, what have they done to you?"

She laughed, a broken, cracked sound, and tried to squirm away from him.

"Cosette! I need you to come with me! I'm here to rescue you as I swore I would!"

The girl did not heed him, still struggling against his grip in an effort to free herself. Marius, desperate, threw the little thing unceremoniously over one shoulder and took off at a run for the Rue de la Flotte.

 

"Madame la Blonde? Monsieur l'Inspecteur?"

There was no answer. Marius staggered into the station, now cradling the little serving girl like an infant, and he deposited her onto the straight-backed chair behind Javert's desk. He dropped to his knees before her and took her hands in his. The girl's blue eyes were travelling wildly about the police station like those of a caged animal.

"Cosette? Darling, do you hear me?"

Her gaze dropped to him and she started to tug her lips back into the horrible smile but, catching the urgency of his attitude, something softened about her expression; before he knew it her face had crumpled and her meager frame was convulsing in silent sobs.

"Cosette," he murmured again, pressing both her calloused hands against his lips. She only shook harder; he got back to his feet and lifted her again, seating himself in the chair and settling her in his lap. Marius wrapped his arms around the girl and let her continue to weep against his lapel, gently running one hand over her matted hair.

When she had finished, the girl straightened up and watched him with watery eyes.

"You're safe now," he said reassuringly, pressing her hands against his chin. "You'll never have to go back to any of them. I promise."

The girl's chapped lips formed another smile, but this one was sincere, if somewhat unsteady. Marius smiled in return, kissing her forehead gently.

"Will you stay here, darling? I must find Madame la Blonde and Monsieur l'Inspecteur. They've promised you will be safe here until tomorrow, and then I hope to clean you up a bit. I shall find you a fine dress, Cosette, made entirely of—of silks! In your favorite color, and we shall arrange your hair in a fashion that becomes your face. We will give you white gloves, darling, and dainty slippers, and then we shall present you to my grandfather, and he will be so taken by your beauty that he will bless our marriage! And we will live together in a big house, and you shall never have to lift a finger for the rest of your life!" He kissed her forehead again, and Cosette threw her arms around him, burying her face against his chest. "You will stay here, then, for just a moment?" She nodded, smiling shakily at him; Marius got to his feet and, clasping Cosette's hand once more, released her and went out into the Rue de la Flotte.

Alone, the serving girl immediately began to explore her new surroundings. The place looked distantly familiar, like something she had seen in a long-ago dream. It was a simple, dusky room with a desk on the right and a narrow flight of stairs on the left. A door at the top of the stairs was closed, but Cosette could see a thin strip of candlelight flickering through a crack at the bottom. At the other side of the back wall was another door. Cosette had seen a grey skeleton key protruding from beneath a neat pile of papers on the desk; she went over and snatched it into her hands, easily unlocked the door on the right.

When she slipped into the corridor Cosette quickly closed the heavy door behind her, pausing as her eyes adjusted to the dim light. At length she could discern long rows of cells on either side of her and, just at her feet, a mattress with a prostrate form stretched upon it.

"'Ey!"

Cosette started, whirling about to face the voice. In the little cell on her right, a skinny waif creature was squatting, watching her with glassy eyes.

"'Ey, Lark! Is 'at you?"

The girl recoiled her a moment at the nickname, but started forward again when she recognized Éponine Thénardier. She instinctively bowed her head in respect to her master's daughter, her superior.

"'Ey, whassat? You got a key?"

Cosette nodded.

"'Ere, then, let me out o' 'ere!" The imprisoned waif rose to her feet and hurried forward, rattling the bars of her cell with both hands. Cosette obeyed quickly, carefully fitting the skeleton key into the lock and working it until the door clicked and creaked open. The Thénardier girl slipped out and immediately went to the dark form on the mattress. "'Elp me out, ey?"

Cosette moved forward and bent over the body, but Éponine had turned him over and revealed a bloody face. The man gasped for air and growled something unintelligible; Cosette, recognizing Montparnasse, backed quickly to the door, wrapping her thin arms protectively around her shoulders.

"Cou, Mamselle Spineless! 'E's in no state to go after you, 'f that's watcher scared of! 'Ere, I'm leavin' 'im 'ere in this cell. 'At's where 'e oughta be anyway, the scoundrel. 'Ere, grab 'is feet; we'll move 'im."

Cosette reluctantly complied, tucking the skeleton key safely in her waistband before lifting Montparnasse's feet and helping Éponine drag him into the cell she had just abandoned, locking him in once he had been deposited somewhat roughly onto the floor.

Éponine turned to her with a grin. "Found 'is blade already, too." She pointed to the ceiling. "'E fell from up there, 'n' 'is lingre came down right after." Cosette looked up; there was a round hole in the ceiling covered by a heavy-looking slab of iron. "Guess Ma'am Fantine did tha' to 'is face. Clawed 'im up a bit, eh? Good, I say. Keep th' bugger in 'is place, tha's wha' she's doin'. She oughta go fer tha' inspector next, is wha' she oughta do. Bastard."

Cosette nodded vaguely, turning her skeleton key over in her hands.

"'Ere, gimme that," Éponine said suddenly. When Cosette pulled the key away, she added, "Trade ya fer th' knife." She pulled the familiar blade out of her own pocket and held it out. "You know that one, doncha? 'Parnasse's. 'E used it on ya, I bet, 'least once. Well, there 'e is, helpless 'n' locked up, 'n' 'ere's the blade. Trade ya fer yer key."

Cosette grabbed the knife from Éponine, shoving the skeleton key at her. Both girls inspected their new acquisitions greedily, tucking them into their waistbands with identical movements.

Éponine took a step closer to Cosette, squinting at her. "Guess yer free now, eh? Tha' silly boy Marius wants to run off wiv ya. So you won' 'ave to put up wiv me pa or 'Parnasse or the likes, eh? Frilly life, waitin' fer ya."

Cosette nodded.

"Guess ya won' be thinkin' much of ol' 'Ponine, huh? Dirty thing what snuck ya a scrap of bread off the table 'ere 'n' there, what went wiv Gueulemer that day you was indisposed, eh?"

She paused for a moment, peering at the other girl, then grinned and shoved playfully at her bony shoulder.

"Liked you better 'n 'Zelma, I did. You don' chatter 'n' you listen real well. 'Member 'at time I 'ad ya hide 'Zelma's clean skirt, ey? Li'l brat looked all over fer 'at dumb rag, wearin' nothin' but 'er ol' shirt, pullin' it down t' hide 'er unmentionables 'n' the like."

She paused again, watching Cosette with a strange look in her fishy eyes.

"There, see, ol' 'Ponine got ya t' crack a li'l smile. Anyway, I'm out, I am. Hope you 'n' yer Marius are happy 'n' the like. Get out o' this dung hole while y' can, ey?"

The Thénardier girl grabbed the serving girl's rough hand and kissed each cheek clumsily. "See ya, then, Lark—Cosette," she mumbled.

Éponine took one hesitant step toward the door, then turned back and seized Cosette by both shoulders, kissing her hard on the mouth. After a long moment, she broke away and fled the station, leaving a very shocked serving girl alone in the back room.


	12. Blood

Fantine had heard the door open and close several times since she had thrown Montparnasse and his knife through the hole in the floor. The first time she had assumed it was Javert returning. She had heard a low voice below, but it was not uncommon for the inspector to mumble to himself as he went about his work. It was only when Fantine heard the door open and close four more times that she began to wonder what was passing in the station and opened her own door.

For a brief moment it seemed that the station below was empty, but then she saw a slight movement from a stooped gargoyle-like shape in the corner. "Who's there?" she called.

The old beggar man who had accosted her several times in the Rue de la Flotte moved into the light, his grizzled white hair standing out in all directions like a lion's mane, his long beard tucked into the front of his trousers. A bit afraid, Fantine forced herself to move down the stairs and into the station, slowly approaching the old man. Her dental key swung from her long fingers as she raised her voice to confront the intruder. "What are you doing in here?" she asked. She had never seen him this close to the station: he always managed to avoid encountering Javert. Fantine had always supposed he had kept away from the inspector because he was a criminal. "A convict or something," she added under her breath. She raised her voice again. "What do you want?"

The old man approached her, his hair falling over his forehead and into his eyes. "Ya know, eh?" he mumbled. "Ya know what happened, eh?" He jerked forward, extending both hands with the palms up. "Ya know he's evil. Ya hafta know." He bowed his head and began bobbing up and down from the waist. "What he did. What he did." Then, without warning, his head snapped up and he seized the front of Fantine's skirts in his knobby fists. "Hey! Don't I know you, madame?" he asked, his beady eyes glinting as he gazed greedily at her.

Fantine jumped away from him, snatching her skirts out of his grip. "Get out!" she cried. "You get out of here! We have important customers coming and I won't have you—"

"Important customers, yes! The innkeeper, isn't it? The innkeeper! What he did, the innkeeper! And the inspector. What they did. And the boy." He was trailing off, murmuring to himself with a fiendish look in his eye. Fantine's own eyes flicked over his shoulder and out the window; her stomach suddenly turned as she spied another stooped, bearded gentleman approaching the station—Thénardier.

"I have no time!" Fantine cried out, and, moving desperately, she raised her dental key above her head and brought it crashing into the beggar man's temple. He collapsed onto the floor, unconscious; Fantine seized his arms and dragged him out of sight, hiding him behind Javert's desk just as the station door swung open. She whirled around, a grin on her face. "Monsieur Thénardier! Your serving girl is on her way," she said quickly, bowing deeply to him. "Perhaps you would like to wait upstairs?"

"You say the girl's changed her mind, has she?" Thénardier asked, rubbing his palms together. "She's ready for me now?"

"She'll be here any moment, monsieur," Fantine said honestly. She followed him up to her chamber, patting the dental key rhythmically against her thigh, and shot one nervous glance over her shoulder. The beggar was completely hidden beneath Javert's desk.

 

Inspector Javert flung the door open and slammed it behind as he stomped into the station. He had gotten the name of the Patron-Minette's main hideout from the waif Éponine, but it had been deserted when he had arrived. He cursed under his breath and stormed over to his orderly desk, yanking the chair out and throwing himself into it. He stretched out one long leg—and encountered something quite solid.

Javert pushed his chair back and looked beneath the desk.

Yes, there was something there—or rather, someone. If there really was a person inside that pile of rags…

Javert seized the bundle by its arms and dragged it outward, mumbling a curse when he saw that it was an old man, probably drunk. "Very well," he sighed aloud. He would lock the drunk away until he regained consciousness.

Rolling the drunkard over onto his back, Javert caught a glimpse of his face and started. The inspector leaned back in his chair with a grin and crossed his arms over his chest. "Well, well, well," he said softly. "A drunkard indeed."

The beggar seemed solidly-built, so Javert was surprised at how easily he was able to throw the man over his shoulders. He had entered the back room with his mind still reeling slightly at this discovery and almost plowed down a ragged waif standing with her back to the door. He dropped the beggar onto the bloodstained mattress that still sat beneath the opening in the ceiling and seized the girl by the upper arm. "Now how did you get out?" he muttered, producing an impressive ring of keys in his other hand. He found the key to the first cell quickly, shoving the skinny girl in and slamming the door behind her. Though she made no protest or struggle the process seemed to take hours; his mind was fixed on the man lying at his feet. "If I see you out of there again, Mademoiselle Thénardier," he said, stooping to retrieve the unconscious beggar, "it'll be Les Madelonettes. Now," he moved to the opposite cell, unlocking its barred door, "once Fantine finds her daughter and I have Thénardier and young Monsieur Pontmercy locked away, you'll be free to go, but I do hope I don't see you again in this neighborhood." He dropped the old beggar into the cell and slammed the door forcefully, his back to the waif. He presumed she was refusing to answer him because she was angry at him. So be it.

Thinking of his newly-incarcerated beggar, Javert allowed himself to chuckle a little as he turned his back. That was done, then; while fulfilling some of Fantine's dreams he had managed to fulfill one of his own.

His own dreams, however, demanded paperwork. The inspector was on his way back to his desk when he heard the iron trapdoor squeak open above; a moment later a thin body fell through, landing nicely on the mattress at his feet.

"Well, well, Fantine!" he called, his grin even wider, "it seems our goal may be at hand!"

"One moment; don't lock him up just yet!" came her response. "I'll be down in one moment!"

Satisfied, he crossed his arms and leaned against the bars of the Thénardier girl's cell, haughtily surveying the prostrate bodies about him. In the opposite cell, the old beggar was lying on his back, his mouth opened slackly. "I must move him before Fantine sees," muttered the inspector. He stepped carefully over Thénardier and unlocked the cell door.

 

This time, Fantine did not clean the blood from beneath her nails. She was finished at last! Montparnasse, Thénardier, and soon she would be reunited with Cosette! It was a shame that the Pontmercy boy would have to be dealt with as well, but there was really no way around it. She wished he would hurry.

When she entered the little hallway, Javert seemed to jump. He was bent over something—a prostrate form, she realised. "I asked you not to move him!" she cried, but of course she was not entirely upset. Nothing Javert did could take the grin off her face.

Fantine didn't hear the inspector's mumbled response, though, for she realized that the body whose shoulders he was holding was not Thénardier. "Monsieur, that's the old—"

"Stay back, Fantine. I need you to stay back."

"Why?" she asked, swallowing a laugh. "He's not dangerous, Javert, believe me. I always figured he was an old con of some kind, the way he avoided you. Here, let me get his feet." She hurried forward and seized him by the ankles, hoisting them up as Javert simultaneously dropped the man's upper body in a moment of clumsy surprise. For the first time, the beggar's long hair fell away from his eyes.

Fantine froze, her own eyes locked on the unmoving face.

For a long moment no one moved; in Fantine's mind years of dirt and hunger faded from the old beggar.

_She was lying on a bed, the concerned face of her poor mayor leaning over her. He continued to watch her and then leaned down, whispering, "Have faith. Sister Simplice will care for you until you are well. I will bring your daughter to you within a year. Wait for me." She could not suppress a tiny smile at these words. Keeping with the charade, her mayor put his large hands on either side of her face and aligned her head with her shoulders, tied the string of her chemise, and gently pushed several stray locks of hair beneath her cap. Then, with a wink, he passed one calloused hand over her face. Fantine obediently closed her eyes. She felt him take her own hand in his and kiss it. "Now I am at your disposal," she heard him say, and two heavy pairs of boots left the room. Fantine peeked out from beneath her lids long enough to see the broad back of the awful inspector before Sister Simplice closed the door._

Fantine opened her eyes and looked down at the face of the poor beggar—the same face she had known so well, so long ago. "You told me he was dead," she whispered.

"I certainly did not!" protested Javert. "I said no one had heard of him since he went to Montfermeil—that is the truth. If he had been seen again, don't you think I'd have known of it?"

"What do you want with him?" she asked desperately, dropping to her knees at the beggar's side. She ran one hand over his wrinkled brow. "He's a good man! He risked everything for my little girl!"

Javert shifted uncomfortably. "He's a convict, Fantine, a dangerous man. A thief. He even stole from children, from an urchin boy with nothing else to live on. I know what he's capable of, do you understand? He has lied to you."

"He saved my life," she murmured. "Twice. He did all of it to reunite me with my daughter."

"I have done far more work for you and your daughter."

"And profited from it! Lying to me all the while!" She leapt to her feet and advanced on him.

The inspector backed slowly away. "Fantine," he began, "I want you to forget this man. He's clearly mad; he can do nothing for you. I have resources, a salary. I can keep you safe. It was I who sent Babet on to La Force—Thénardier and Montparnasse will soon follow—all to avenge your daughter!"

"Avenge my daughter, eh?"

"Of course, for your daughter. Fantine, please don't come any closer. I certainly don't want to have to hurt you. It's enough I haven't arrested you for attacking gentlemen and—"

He did not finish; Fantine sprang at him, knocking him backwards against the wall, and tore into his face with her long nails. The inspector did not fight back; the collision with the wall had knocked him unconscious. Once she had calmed herself, Fantine seized him by the arms and slowly dragged him into a cell, taking the key ring from his pocket to lock the door behind him. She hurried to the beggar and dropped to her knees beside him. "Monsieur le maire," she said urgently. "Monsieur le maire, can you hear me?"

The old man did not respond. Fantine lowered an ear to his mouth and felt no breath escaping. "Monsieur le maire?" she asked again. Tears choked her voice.

 

While these things were passing without an entirely different story was unfolding behind the bars of the first cell on the right. The long form lying in the shadows across the back wall twitched, groaned, and clutched its head.

The young murderer had come to. He pushed himself slowly into a crouch and blinked around at his surroundings. His steely gaze immediately landed on the trembling serving girl, the Lark; his black eyes glittered above a twisted grin.

He chuckled and moved slowly toward her without straightening up, a partial crawl across the dusty floor of the cell. The girl moved away until her back collided with the wall.

"A perfect cellmate," he said, his voice hardly more than a rasp. The girl began fumbling with the front of her rags and he smirked. "You're doing your part this time, eh?" Montparnasse rose to his feet and advanced on her, but just as he seized both her shoulders he felt a wave of icy chill sweep over his body.

The girl was glaring into his face with a mad leer. Her blue eyes were round and twinkling beneath her gathered brow while her chapped lips remained drawn back in an eerie smile. "What—" Montparnasse began, but he looked down and saw both of her hands wrapped around the hilt of a knife—his knife—which was buried in his stomach. His own blood was seeping out, covering her fingers, glittering in the dark. His legs gave way and he fell to his knees. She withdrew and watched as the murderer held his white hands over the wound, watched as the blood trickled between his white fingers, and she smiled.

 

Even hunched over her mayor, tears in her eyes, Fantine heard Montparnasse's voice muttering from behind her. Rage flashed through her veins and she sprang to her feet. She would not be merciful this time. She was going to rip him apart. For Cosette and for the mayor.

She retrieved the ring of keys and left the mayor's side, striding over to the door and Montparnasse's cell and throwing it open.

But the murderer was already lying on the floor. He was panting for breath, his mouth open wide, blood trickling from the corners, his slender hands, stained red, scrambling frantically at the hard floor of the station. Fantine froze for the briefest moment.

And then she felt a blinding pain as though she had been beaten, one quick blow to the back. She dropped to her hands and knees and gasped, the air tearing at her lungs, and choked as she felt something fill her throat. She lifted one hand to her mouth and found that it was blood. Her own blood. Fantine slowly turned and saw a skinny urchin girl with a wild look brandishing a bleeding knife before she collapsed.

 

"Cosette? Darling?"

The station was utterly silent and the girl was nowhere to be seen. Marius felt the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck prickling. The door on the right was cracked open.

"Cosette?"

And then he heard a voice, cracking, low, and childlike, coming from the back room. Marius hurried toward the door.

"Cosette?"

The door led to a narrow corridor lined by small cells, and fitting a key into one of the barred doors was his dear little serving girl, her back to him, singing softly to herself. He took a step toward her.

"I couldn't find Madame la Blonde or the Inspector," he said.

The girl did not turn around.

Marius began to move closer but started when he noticed a figure seated on the low bench in the cell at his right. He turned to face it.

It was the dangerous gentleman who had threatened him. He was sitting rigidly in the middle of the bench, his knees together and his hands in his lap, but his head had rolled limply to his shoulder. "Ha," Marius muttered, "so they've caught you." He looked closer, a half-smile playing across his lips, but it dropped away when he glanced down. The floor of the cell was covered in dark pools, glittering black in the dim light. "Is that—?" Marius began, and then he leapt away. "Blood!" he cried. "He's dead! Cosette! He's dead!"

He spun around and looked at the opposite cell. There was Thénardier, seated in the same manner, his beady eyes insensible. In the next cell was the old beggar man, and across from him was the inspector. All of them were sitting primly in the middle of the benches, only their lolling heads giving testimony to their lifelessness. Trails of smeared blood indicated that they had been arranged this way.

"Cosette," Marius said weakly, his head reeling. He did not know how to continue. What happened? Why? Who did this? The words wouldn't come.

The baron turned; Cosette had gone into a cell, leaving the door open behind her. Slowly, miserably, Marius approached and looked inside.

He let out a moan, tears filling his eyes. Cosette was kneeling before Madame la Blonde, smoothing her skirt and crossing her hands in her lap. The girl turned and saw him, a smile lighting her features, and she laid her head on Madame's knee, still singing a song whose words were nonsense.


End file.
